Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]

It is certainly true that the only blastocysts created from cybrid research have been in China. The hope is that that research will be replicated, because without doing so we cannot show that it works. Saying that we should not be allowed to replicate such research is not a solution to the problem of whether it actually works. Let me deal with the ethical objections. There are those who object to the measures ethically, because they believe that life begins at conception and therefore they object to all embryo research. Now is not the time to have that debate, but they will vote against all the measures in the Bill, just as they did in 1990, and they have every right to do so. However, some people have picked out hybrid embryos as a separate ethical issue, even though they might not oppose embryo research. However, that is peculiar. Are such people arguing that hybrid embryos are too human and therefore ought to have greater protection than human embryos? I do not understand that, and nor did the Health Committee. If it is ethically acceptable to use up and destroy fully human embryos, with all the potential that they have, as has been done, how can it be right to provide hybrid embryos, which clearly have less potential, in terms of viability, with greater protection? That does not make sense. I do not understand what the ethical difference is with true hybrids. I asked the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds) what the ethical difference was between a 50 per cent. hybrid and a 99 per cent. human hybrid, but all he said was that it involved sex cells. Sex cells—gametes—are indeed involved, but just because the word ““sex”” is used does not mean that ethical problems arise in the science, so I still await an answer to the question as to what the ethical objections are.